Mark Renshaw was sensationally ejected from the Tour de France overnight after being found guilty of headbutting fellow lead out man Julian Dean at the conclusion of Stage 11, a 185km ride from Sisteron to Bourg-les-Valence. However, the ends may have justified the means as Renshaw's teammate Mark Cavendish sped away to his third stage victory defeating Alessandro Pettachi (who inherited the Green Jersey) and Tyler Farrar in the final sprint. There was no change to the overall classification with the main bunch all finishing together.
Renshaw's disqualification will be a major talking point after the Australian rider was thrown out of the race for repeatedly headbutting Julian Dean in the final kilometre in order to make space for Mark Cavendish in the sprint. With Dean pinning Renshaw (and therefore Cavendish) to the barriers, Renshaw repeatedly used his head to move Dean out of the way. Finally he was succesful and opened up a path for the Manx man to get through, but on review of the tape race officials were outraged and disqualified Renshaw. Personally, I think a disqualification is harsh and a relegation to last position on the stage would have sufficied. I question whether the same punishment would have been metred out to one of the glamour sprinters for a similar incicident. Renshaw may have paid the price for being simply a lead out man (I question whether a European would have recieved a similar punishment to be honest). In the end, the results worked, as once Cavendish found daylight he stormed away from rivals to take the stage, his third of this years Tour, and the 13th of his career.
As a result Cavendish is up to fourth in the points classification and now trails new leader Alessandro Pettachi by just 29 points. Pettachi took the jersey off Thor Hushovd's shoulders after the Norwegian could only manage 7th on the stage. He now leads the classification by 4 points and would have to be favoured to take the jersey in Paris now, especially given that Hushovd cannot seem to match it with the big guys in the sprints at the moment. Admittedly their are four big mountain stages that Pettachi must get over in the Pyrenees to get to Paris (and he has never finished the tour before), but he has shown his ability to last a three week tour in the Giro many times. Surely the Green Jersey is incentive enough to get him over the line. You would think Hushovd's best chacne now is to try and pinch some points in the intermediate sprints somewhere, while Cavendish will have to win in Revel and Paris, and hope his rivals slip up and drop big points if he is to take his first Green jersey.
Jerome Pineau increased his hold on the Polka Dot Jersey over Anthony Charteau to 2 points by picking up the last available point on the only climb of the day, the cat-4 Col de Cabre. With the peleton finishing together there was no change to the overall classification with Andy Schleck contiuing to hold onto both the Yellow and White Jersey's.
Yellow Jersey - Andy Schleck
Green Jersey - Alessandro Pettachi
Polka Dot Jersey - Jerome Pineau
White Jersey - Andy Schleck
Tonight's Stage - The big boy's might come back out to play on Stage 12, a 210km roll from Bourg-de-Peage to Mende. The day finishes with the cat-2 climb of the Cote de la Croix-Neuve, a climb which Alberto Contador has already won on twice in Paris-Nice. Given that, and given that Contador still needs to make up time on his great rival Andy Schleck, it is hard to go past the Spaniard for the stage win. This may be only classified a medium mountains stage but there is sure to be fireworks so it is definatley a night to stay up for.
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